MUMBAI: The four Latin jazz musicians will sue the Grammy Award producers for axing ‘The Best Latin Jazz Album Category’ from the nomination list.
Legal papers claim the changes will have a detrimental effect on the musicians’ careers by taking away the Latin jazz category, as the artistes from the eliminated categories have to compete in a general field including pop, rock, hip-hop and many more.
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The four musicians accusing the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences include Ben Lapidus, Eugene Marlow, and Grammy nominated Bobby Sanabria and Mark Levine.
Lawyer representing the musicians, Roger Maldonado said, “They shouldn’t have done this not only does it devalue the category of music and the work of these musicians but it makes it much harder for them to gain recognition. The concern is by lumping several categories together, it makes it much easier for larger record labels and those artists who have already gained recognition to dominate. Even being nominated for the award has enormous value for these musicians.”
Responding to the claim, The US National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has dismissed the lawsuit, calling it “frivolous” and has said that they “fully expect to prevail.”
In April 2011, the Grammy producers announced the decision of axing the number of award categories from 109 to 78. The changes included eliminating the categories like Best Latin Jazz and Best Classical Crossover album, and reducing the male and female divisions in the pop vocal category for one field.
